4.0 Abstract: Developmental Funds Developmental funds support UMGCC?s mission by facilitating recruitment of new faculty in areas of strategic need and by supporting new research initiatives and pilot studies necessary to develop research so that it can be competitive for extramural funding. Unfortunately, in the last CCSG funding cycle, because of a severely limited total budget, no developmental funds were allocated from the CCSG. Despite this, the UMGCC invested $1.48 million in funds from other sources to support pilot projects by UMGCC investigators. This resulted in more than $12 million in new extramural funding. In addition, the Cancer Center invested more than $5.2 million to support the recruitment of new faculty. This was leveraged by an additional $19 million in departmental and institutional funds to support basic science recruits who are members of the Cancer Center and $22.4 million in departmental and institutional funds to support clinical faculty who are UMGCC members. These recruits have significantly enhanced all of the five UMGC research programs. In the present application, $50,000 in CCSG developmental funds are requested to support the development of a data and biosample repository serving the PS Program ($20,000); to support pilot studies performed in UMGCC shared services ($20,000), which will enhance awareness and utilization of shared services by UMGCC investigators and provide preliminary data for future external funding of novel projects; and to support the recruitment of population science faculty ($10,000). The new PS Program presented in this application is the result of a successful collaboration between investigators on the UMB and UMCP campuses. UMGCC is committed to recruiting faculty on both campuses, and these developmental funds will be used to partially support the salary of a new faculty recruit in population science who will be housed either at the SPH at UMCP or in the Department of Epidemiology at UMB.